Where do you find Linux?

Looking through my home for Linux systems I just realized that it is everywhere. First of all, I find it on my computers - from servers to laptop. That is the obvious place though. I wonder, where else can I find Linux running?

Next, I find it on my set-top-box, a DM500 - a dreambox. The dreamboxes range from my very basic PAL receiver to devices with multiple receivers and HD-support. All are based on a Linux system running on a PowerPC processor. The box has networking and there is community driven development version of the software running on the box. The result - I can stream TV to my laptop, play content from my server and set record timers over the internet.

Then, looking further, there is a cell phone. Not mine actually, but my wife has an Android phone, so that has to count. Not as hackable as I'd like. I just might have to get a N900 to remedy this situation. Any phone with a shell prompt is a must have :-)

Realizing that I missed the obvious - my router. The LinkSys WRT54-something router happily runs Linux. Actually, it is running (a rather old) image from the OpenWrt project. OpenWrt can be considered as a distribution for Linux-based routers. I can't boast about having configured and extended it to prepare my morning coffee - but the community driven images can handle features such as printer sharing and NAS in addition to being a great DHCP server and firewall.

Looking in my daughters room, I can't find Linux anywhere - at least not yet. However, a small Tux sits on a shelf.

Image courtesy of: Larry Ewing, Simon Budig and Anja Gerwinski.

______________________

Johan Thelin is a consultant working with Qt, embedded and free
software. On-line, he is known as e8johan.

TV's need software to Display the picture on the screen, control Volume, set date and time, pretty much all their basic functions. Many Companies will use Linux and/or other Open-Source software for this. It saves time and money on development. But, if they are using something that is under a GPL then they are required to supply a copy of the GPL with the product. A bunch of companies just got in trouble for not doing this, Best Buy was one of them and I think JVC was in there too. I believe it was Busy Box they were using. Someone correct me if I got the details of that law suite wrong.

The only real draw back to the N900 is that. The device is great. But you are limited to At&t or Tmobile. Hopefully we will see more Maemo or should I say Meego options in the near future. And hopefully they will keep it as open as it currently is.

P.S. BMW announced the other day that they will be useing MeeGo in the car's entertainment units soon.

At my house we have quite a bit too. Most of the computers--from netbooks to laptops to desktops to a local server run various distributions of Linux.

We have a couple of cheap Motorola phones that technically run a Linux kernel because of LiMo.

Our Tom Tom runs Linux.

My Nokia N800 Internet Tablet runs Linux--quite hackably! I <3 Maemo.

My Barnes & Noble nook runs Linux through Android distribution.

But not too much else. Have some phones running generic OSs and one Blackberry. The ruoter is a cheapo Netgear with no chance of a Linux distro. And nothing fancy in the living room or anything. Probably our lack of Linux gadgets is more attributable to a lack of gadgets.. a situation I'd love to remedy!

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